darice.org

Site maintenance

darice@darice.org (Darice de Cuba) — Sat, 28 Jun 2008 10:42:00 GMT

Well like the saying goes "the shit has hit the fan", I'm getting errors on the admin back-end of Simplelog, I can't view my posts and comments nor edit them. I can only adjust the site preference and add a new post. You can see the error I'm getting. I saved it as a plain page.

It just stopped working one day to the other, my host looked into it and they say it's a problem with Simplelog and not their server configuration. And seeing Simplelog is no longer actively developed and it's user group is almost non existent I'm on my own on this.

I'm seriously considering switching to the newest weblog app Chyrp. It's done with PHP using a MVC design pattern. Since it launched I've been dropping in once in a while to follow updates. Up until now development on it is steady and it has an active user group in the forums.

So these coming days I'll be running Chyrp locally learning how it works, importing my current site design in Chyrp format. I'll have to reset my host server settings making the root PHP again, and installing Chyrp online. All content I made with Simplelog I'll will pull with a simple PHP script from the database and keep them under archives, unless I manage to import them in Chyrp.

Lots of work ahead and not really motivated to get started but I'll do my best. If anyone knows why I get the error mentioned above in Rails using Simplelog please let me know at darice at darice dot org I'm guessing they updated the Rails or Ruby version of the server and the script being more then a year old stopped working, or at least a part of it.

I'll keep comments closed considering I can't edit them so I can't remove spam. So email me if you have advice or something to say....I'll keep you posted on the switching progress.

Grilled Pizza Sandwich

darice@darice.org (Darice de Cuba) — Sun, 15 Jun 2008 20:00:00 GMT

Months ago we had to trow away our grill pan because it was all used up and dirty. I wanted to buy a good one next, not from IKEA. It had to be smaller, better material and the right weight. But months passed, I saw only one I liked which costed like 50 euro, way too much. And others where of cheap material. Meanwhile I had to pass up all grilled dinners until I got a new pan.

Yesterday I decided I wanted to make panini, but a panini press isn't as useful as a grill pan. So I went out looking for a grill pan and got one, small sized, from the brand "Le Chef" which is a decent brand and decent prized. Then I went by the supermarket and got ingredients for my first dinner to be made on the grill pan: "Grilled Pizza Sandwich" I just made it up decided to try it out.

I got the most useful bread one can get at four o'clock on a saturday at the supermarket, shredded mozzarella, artichoke, basic tomato sauce, green bell pepper and red onion. Today I decided to give a try at lunch with one bread slice.

See the whole series

It came out so good that I just had 2 slices for dinner, I spiced it a bit more with some oregano, garlic and cappers plus I let it sit a bit longer on the grill to make the bread crunchier.

Anyone can make this very easily, just use a larger then normal bread, smear on butter on the bottom so it won't stick on the pan. Start with a basic tomato sauce, add mozzarella cheese, toppings of your choice and grill it!

My Life

darice@darice.org (Darice de Cuba) — Sun, 01 Jun 2008 01:31:00 GMT

Edition: 004

This monday I'm checking in at the hospital for surgery the next day. I don't know how long I'll have to stay, as long as all goes well. Meanwhile I'm prepping by buying new PJ's, warm socks, I got a book as gift and also a Body Shop kit with shower gel, lotion, soap and wash cloth. I have to load my iPod Touch with movies to have something other then TV to watch. This will take a while as I have to convert with subtitles and elgato Turbo.264 doesn't play nice with subtitles. I have been meaning to do a write up on elgato Turbo.264, that will have to be an next entry.

Obviously I'll be taking some time off work, so this week I have been working to finish all open projects. Since I started there on January as junior I'm already been assigned as manager of all internal websites and applications. So this past week I did my best to finish all open projects so my co-workers can continue with the rest.

While at the hospital I will be without internet because they still don't have internet for patients. I will be able to check my mail through my phone if the GPRS connection is good. In any case I'll have stuff to keep me busy should be needed.

Today I went the bookstore and I bought "A New Earth" by Eckhart Tolle and "The Lovely Bones" by Alice Sebold. I've been wanting to buy "A New Earth" for some time already. I want to follow Oprah's online workshop but only the streaming version has subtitles, the downloadable iPod version doesn't has subtitles. So I can't watch them from my iPod away from my computer. So it will be just the book.

And "The Lovely Bones" I just picked out on sight, just browsing for something that would catch my attention. I just wanted a story to read without wanting to stop. With all this I should have enough to not get bored at the hospital.

One minute photolab

darice@darice.org (Darice de Cuba) — Thu, 01 May 2008 23:59:00 GMT

Since recently I have been trying out Adobe Lightroom. I always used Photoshop for touch ups. So Lightroom was very different, it's basically just a digital darkroom. Instead of Actions like in Photoshop it has Presets. You can load downloaded ones, or create your own. Once the preset is loaded you just mouse over on it and get a small thumbnail preview of how the photo will look. Once you apply a preset you can change settings and adjust the photo to your taste.

But you can easily go to far with Lightroom, so a good photo composition is still key factor to a good photo. But taking photos with the Ricoh really lets one see how good DSLRs are. With my Nikon D70 in automatic mode I can shoot away perfect photos. But the Ricoh GR is not so great in automatic. I never shoot automatic, since I got the D70 I've been using manual 100% of the time. Once you can use manual easily automatic is like a handicap.

Everyone who owns a DSLR with a kit lens can take a good photo quality wise, so to stand out nowadays composition is everything. 10 people can photograph the same item, but only a few will take a unique view of the item.

The trick is to take a mundane object and make an interesting photo out of it. And also to know how the photo will look best, e.g. in B&W or colors? I decided to give it a try and create a composition in my room and use my desk lamp as only light source.

My shoes

See full size versions on my flickr macro set

The whole process took very little time to get done. The longest part was taking the photos. Then load them on the computer, open Lightroom, select the best shots, apply presets and done. But for me the thrill of photography is always getting a good composition. When I started taking photos with a Fuji S5000 I would sit/stand for hours observing animals in the nature to get that one great shot.

If you want to challenge yourself, get a fixed lens like a 28mm or 50mm and shoot in manual only. Think good about the composition and remember that digital editing is just the finishing touch, not what makes the picture.

A cross road called Wajong

darice@darice.org (Darice de Cuba) — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 11:04:00 GMT

Since November 2007 that I applied for a government welfare payment because I'm not able to work full time due to my illness, I still haven't gotten it. Here I live in a country of which I have the Dutch nationality, I pay taxes, I paid insurance for if I was ever not able to work full time, which has happened. And now they keep rejecting me due to mistaken information they got on file.

The government is having discussions every week about the big problem, young people not being able to work and living from welfare. This particularly welfare is called "Wajong", 'Law of Disability Provisions for the Young Handicapped'. According to the numbers too many people are getting Wajong while they are able to work. I'm super pissed off when I read that if someone has an IQ of 85 they are declared incapable of working and automatically get full Wajong for the rest of their lives, according to an article in Elsevier.

And I for one got incapable in July 2006 when I became a dialyse patient, since then I get tired very fast plus I became deaf so that really makes it hard to get a job or even function 100% in team work. Now I only work 4 hours a day. By law I'm entitled to 35% Wajong(this is according to the evaluation I went through), I was healthy and a college student at the time I became ill. I satisfy every requirement to get Wajong but they keep rejecting me for reasons like:

"you were already incapable of work when you moved to Holland"
"you became incapable of work in 2007, you have to be ill for 52 weeks before getting Wajong(I'm Ill since 2006)"

I issued a complain and they rectified it and continued the procedure, I was declared 35% incapacitated of working and then again rejected, reason?

"you were already incapable of work when you moved to Holland"

Yes, again same mistaken reason I already had them rectify. Since then I have been waiting for a month for their reaction to my second complain. We called them about this, on the phone they said I had to be living here for 6 years to have a right to get Wajong. I don't know where they got that as it isn't stated anywhere in the Wajong law. Even so I have been living in the Netherlands for more then 6 years! So now they gave me an appointment for over one month to defend my case with the civil servant handling my case, which is always someone different.

I applied for Wajong beginning November 2007 it's going to be 5 months now and still no progress. If the government is complaining how everyone who has some illness but are still capable of doing some kind of work still get full Wajong then why can't I get the 35% I'm entitled to?

Meanwhile it's highly stressful working everyday and not being able to work full time even if you want to. Last week I worked 25 hours instead of 20 to finish some deadlines. I was so tired that my whole week-end was ruined, I didn't have any energy left to do something. And working part-time is no gold-mine either. And everyday I hope I wake up energized enough to head to work otherwise I have to force myself because I don't want to call in sick a lot.

If I get Wajong I'm assured of a job/income. So if I'm unable to work say because I'm in the hospital, my employer can keep paying me and claim my salary with the government. This way I don't have to worry about my job and bills when I'm in the hospital or sick at home.

In a country where we way pay taxes on every damn thing you don't expect to be treated like this.

I'm adding relevant links(Dutch content) below and I'll be linking to my own Dutch article on Wajong. It won't help much but at least Google will know about this.

Wie krijgt een Wajong uitkering?
Hoe zit dat met de Wajong?
Mijn ervaring met Wajong aanvraag procedure(coming soon)

My quest for a compact high end camera

darice@darice.org (Darice de Cuba) — Sun, 13 Apr 2008 00:27:00 GMT

After three years of using only the Nikon D70 and always having to plan if I take it out with me, considering big enough bag, which lenses, etc. I decided it would be a good idea to have a compact camera that I could easily carry around everywhere. Last year I looked at a few cameras but they where to big and I somehow wanted the ability to shoot RAW.

Then through Twitter and Flickr someone mentioned Ricoh GR2 and posted some photo taken with it. That's when my interest for a compact arose again and I started doing some research on DP review. The camera looks great, good specs and reviews. But way to expensive for a second camera alongside my Nikon D70. Then I saw Ricoh GR Digital which was released in 2005. Now that version 2 is out the first one is cheaper. But most of them are sold out.

Panasonic has a camera comparable to the Ricoh GR, namely the Lumix LX 2 which has a Leica lens. This one is less expensive then a GR2 but more expensive then a GR. Both these camera are for the more advanced users, having a fixed 28mm lens with some digital zoom only, extensive manual settings, a good ISO range and RAW ability.

Considering how expensive these cameras are I decided to check one second handed. I never bought any gadget second handed, only cheap old film cameras. I used a dutch merchant website owned by e-bay. This site doesn't work with profiles so it's really at your own risk.

A search for Ricoh GR yielded one result only and for Lumix LX2 one result only. So I bid for both see which one I could get. Typically the Ricoh was posted online for days and nobody had bid but as soon as I bid people started overbidding me. There isn't a time limit here, the seller decides which bid it will take. Really wanting the Ricoh I did a heavy bid and won it right away. Meanwhile the Lumix was being heavily bid one so I let it pass.

This Ricoh was advertised as new in box, never used being sold because the owner doesn't use it. I got it for 10% less then the cost of the remaining GR being sold in stores.

I didn't want to take the risk of being ripped off and because the seller lives 20 minutes by train from The Hague I setup a meeting for the exchange.

It turned out to be a nice man, the camera was a gift for his girlfriend but she didn't have any use for the camera so they decided to sell it. The camera came brand new in the box with plastic still on the LCD. Complete with everything and the store recipe. So that was a really lucky purchase, the camera was bought just a month ago. I couldn't be happier, worth every penny and I get a one year warranty.

The Ricoh GR doesn't come with SD card, so the next day I got a SD Extreme 2GB which is more then enough. Still needed: a cool wrist strap like the blue one for Nintendo Wii remote and a camera pouch, a funky one.

Today I took the camera around city for a few try outs. It took and will take some getting used to it, after three years with an DSLR. There is no view finder so I have to use the LCD display. A very handy factor is that you can see the settings "live" on the display: if it is too dark or too bright, etc. But I hope after some use I'll know the camera good enough to get great pictures.

You can see some of the photos taken with the Ricoh GR. I went with mostly B&W using ISO 400 to try get the grainy effect of a Kodak Black and White ISO400 film.

I'm looking forward to take more photos of different subjects and maybe a video just for fun to put on Flickr.

My Life

darice@darice.org (Darice de Cuba) — Wed, 26 Mar 2008 23:07:00 GMT

Edition 003

Not much going on right now. Work is as usual, we had pizza at "La Galleria" on good friday after work, it was fun. Being busy everyday with coding gets ideas flowing in my head for articles and projects. I have an entry on webdesign business planned. Just have to sit down and write it out.

Last week and yesterday I had my regular doctors appointment. I'm scheduled to have surgery to remove my parathyroid glands and have them placed in my arms. Due that my kidneys don't work it affects the parathyroid glands which causes a high level of calcium in my blood. So I have been on the waiting list for surgery, the waiting time is about 4 to 6 week and I have been waiting since mid february. I expect to be called any day now. Hopefully the surgery will go fine, I'm a bit nervous, no one likes having surgery.

I have been keeping busy with cooking and documenting the results. I also bought an iPod Touch, I have been saving for months for a gadget. And it became the 8GB iPod Touch. I have been converting movies and uploading them on it, I got to sync my Google Calendar with the calendar app. This way I have my agenda offline available. I haven't been taking it with me everywhere as I have yet to get an iPod sock for it.

I also added an iPhone icon to my website for myself. So when I add my website to the springboard I get a nice icon. I hope that there will be good and useful apps when they are released in June. But for now I'm using plenty off online app like Twitter, the local TV Guide, etc. I'll be taking it to the hospital which is easier for watching video, then dragging along my old iBook G4.

Well that was about it for now, I'll be posting more entries soon, an article like I said before and a hardware review.